Читать книгу King Henry IV, Part 2 - Уильям Шекспир, William Szekspir, the Simon Studio - Страница 2

  RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop

    The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?

    I, from the orient to the drooping west,

    Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold

    The acts commenced on this ball of earth.

    Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,

    The which in every language I pronounce,

    Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

    I speak of peace while covert emnity,

    Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;

    And who but Rumour, who but only I,

    Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,

    Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,

    Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,

    And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe

    Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,

    And of so easy and so plain a stop

    That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,

    The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,

    Can play upon it. But what need I thus

    My well-known body to anatomize

    Among my household? Why is Rumour here?

    I run before King Harry's victory,

    Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,

    Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,

    Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

    Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I

    To speak so true at first? My office is

    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell

    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,

    And that the King before the Douglas' rage

    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.

    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns

    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury

    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,

    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,

    Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,

    And not a man of them brings other news

    Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues

    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.